Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s candid admission that Australia is going to be reliant on fossil fuels for “a long, long period of time” is a welcome dose of reality. ­Treasury projections indicate that 80 per cent of Australia’s electricity will be generated from fossil fuels – coal and gas – until well into the next decade, and more than half of our ­electricity will be produced from these non-renewable sources for another 30 years.

But those projections, in turn, are beginning to look increasingly unrealistic as the costs of expanding renewable power projects strike home. At last count, the large-scale alternative energy project sector, mainly wind farms, will have to triple output in just eight years to meet existing legislated alternative energy targets, just as community resistance to those installations are growing.

Then there is the fact that Australia’s exports will be more dominated by coal and gas to feed the energy-hungry Asian region for decades to come.

In declaring Australia’s ongoing reliance on fossil fuels at a community forum in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, Ms Gillard was playing to her Queensland audience. Had she been speaking to an inner-city Melbourne or Sydney electorate, the ­message would have been different.

But being straightforward with the electorate, particularly in a state where Labor’s primary support has slumped to just 22 per cent, according to the latest Nielsen poll, is an improvement on ruling out a carbon tax days before an election and then agreeing to one soon after.

In contrast, Greens leader Christine Milne is not being frank with voters about the costs of her demand that 50 per cent of our energy must come from renewable sources by 2030.